It has held sway in the humanities for nearly four decades, surviving even the great culture wars. But it is being used in surprising ways. Either literary theory is dead, or it’s invincible. It all ...

In “Goodbye, Mr. Keating” (Careers, July 7), Thomas H. Benton asserts that the academic study of literature is, or has become, incompatible with the love of literature that attracts so many students ...

“THE reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”, quipped Mark Twain when a newspaperman informed him about his obituary published in a newspaper. Of late, the rumours about the death of Urdu ...

Finally, the New York Times has caught up with the next dubious trend in English literature departments: neuroscience. As Patricia Cohen writes, "Zealous enthusiasm for the politically charged and ...

The subject was dirt, or perhaps I should say “Dirt.” It was spring 1996, and I was a newly minted comp-lit Ph.D. candidate thrilled to be taking part in my first academic conference. Okay, it was a ...

Literature depends on literacy, a very recent acquisition in human evolutionary history--so recent that it cannot plausibly be considered an adaptation. But people in all non-literate cultures use ...

Mediterranean studies flourish in literary and cultural studies, but if you look at the numerous publications on the subject, it is striking that the concepts of the Mediterranean and the theories and ...

Hugh Blair was the very first English professor. His official title was the regius professor of rhetoric and belles lettres at the University of Edinburgh, and when he was appointed in 1762, almost no ...

This is a preview. Log in through your library . Journal Information Contemporary Literature covers the whole range of critical practices, offering new perspectives in contemporary literary studies.

For at least a half-century, scholars have been adopting literary approaches to the New Testament inspired by certain branches of literary criticism and theory. In this book, Michal Beth Dinkler uses ...